A Pilgrim’s Digression

I would not make a good political commentator, unless I was paid to do it. Here it is one in the afternoon and I am only just getting around to mentioning that my candidate, Barak Obama, won the Virginia, Maryland, and D.C. primaries last night. ABC called the Virginia primary for Obama shortly after seven, and at that point I did not bother waiting for any more news. Virginia was the big prize.

It’s rather ironic that he won so handily here in the Chesapeake region because just yesterday I wrote that I thought Hillary would do better than expected. That was not just a statement I made to lower my own high expectations. I really did think she would do better. I was feeling more sympathetic towards her myself.

I listened to the podcast of the 60 Minutes interview with Clinton, in which she came across as genial, sympathetic, and even genuine…a word I never would have imagined myself using to describe Hillary Clinton. I read news articles throughout the day, and I watched ABC’s recounting of her activities during the day, shortly before the polls closed–noting how the reporter was sure to put in a sly dig at her at the end, saying that she seemed like she couldn’t put D.C. and the Potomac primary in her rear view mirror fast enough as she boarded her plane to depart for Wisconsin.

Furthermore, NBC anchor’s David Shuster’s comment about Hillary and Bill “pimping” Chelsea out to Superdelegates, who she has been calling on behalf of her mother, also seemed designed to play on my sympathies. It was way out of line and seemed in accord with the Clinton complaint that some news organizations, like NBC, are unabashedly in the Obama camp. Can you imagine what would have happened to Rush Limbaugh if he had said that Obama had “pimped” his wife to Superdelegates?

So what’s gong on with me? Am I really that inconstant that I would now begin to take another look at Clinton?

I always have had a thing for underdogs, and she is becoming more and more of the underdog as she loses primaries. Contributing to my reassessment of my anti-Hillary bias was this article by Stanley Fish that I read yesterday, A Calumny A Day To Keep Hillary away, which proposes to debunk the sexist thinking behind anti-Hillary feelings.

Most persuasive to me was Fish’s observation that even people who like her, but who don’t believe she is electable, there is an illogic that borders on the sexist. The argument as Fish propounds it goes like this: “Yes, Hillary-hatred is irrational and unfair. But it’s a fact and it’s not going away. Indeed it will only intensify in the general election. Therefore we cannot nominate her, for she would surely lose.”

I have made this argument myself. Fish notes that to NOT choose Hillary on this bases cedes the center of political power to the haters and ranters. Democrats are allowing the Hillary haters to choose their nominee.

Fish goes further: “Underlying this surrender of the franchise to those least qualified to exercise it is the complaint (rarely overtly stated) that the Clintons have had the bad taste to undergo the assassination of their characters in public and have thereby made us its unwilling spectators. This is of course the old ploy of blaming the victim…”

So, I have found a newfound sympathy for Hillary Clinton. I might possibly even vote for her.

However, just when I am beginning to reconsider her as a potential candidate, her husband speaks. Yesterday, just as the polls were closing in Virginia, Bill Clinton gave an interview to a local reporter, Chris Plante of the AM radio station I listen to in the mornings.

Stanley Fish makes a good case for Hillary as a victim of sexism. Bill Clinton, in typical fashion, went much further and portrayed his wife and himself as the victims of a media conspiracy to keep her from the White House.

“Well I think she has been the underdog ever since Iowa. She’s had a lot of the politicians like Senator Kennedy opposed to her. She’s had…the political press has avowedly played a role in this election that I’ve never seen before.”

What’s he saying? She is a victim. People aren’t recognizing her fitness to be President because of the media and political forces unfairly aligned against her. Anyone who remembers the Clinton years recognizes this victimization of themselves as a trademark of the Clinton world view: we are great people, but there are dastardly forces at work in the world to keep Americans from recognizing our greatness.

Asked about why Hillary is losing primary after primary, Bill blames voters, specifically caucus-goers: “The caucuses aren’t good for her. They disproportionately favor upper income voters who don’t really need a President, but feel like they need a change.”

Don’t really need a President? Because they are “upper income?” And how does he define upper income? To me, “upper income” means people like Bill Clinton and Rush Limbaugh. The caucus participants I saw on TV looked much like me and, presumably, my readers. Clinton’s haughty dismissal of caucus participants as rich elites who are foiling Hillary’s ambitions smacks of sour grapes.

There are two words to explain why many people, myself included, are not supporting Hillary Clinton for President: Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton has revealed something very telling about his character, both here in these comments made to Chris Plante, and illustrated earlier in South Carolina with his petty remarks comparing Obama’s victory to the Jesse Jackson bid for the Presidency in the eighties.

Bill Clinton does not know what it means to be graceful in defeat. His remarks are tainted with a disturbing arrogance that ought to appall his supporters. Further, one gets a sense that there may even be a tinge of arrogance lurking in Hillary’s character, as well. After Obama’s victories yesterday, she did not mention Obama in a speech she gave in Texas, nor did she call him to congratulate him.

I am receptive to a good argument for why the Clinton’s are actually decent people with only the country’s best interests at heart, rather than people eager only to attain power. But they themselves make it very difficult to fully believe that argument. Just like in the nineties, when Bill Clinton supporters routinely had to close their eyes to his faults in order to keep liking him, today’s Clinton supporters must to some extent suspend disbelief in order to view the Clinton’s sympathetically.

One has to believe that the Hillary Clinton portrayed in the Katie Couric interview is real, that when she cries, those tears are coming from genuine feeling for other people and not from her own deep-seated fear of losing the nomination. The Clinton’s utter lack of respect for Obama argues against us sympathizing too much with them.

They both believe this election is theirs by right. Rush Limbaugh still believes they will have the nomination, even if it means riots in the streets at the nominating convention. While I am not convinced they would go so far as to steal the nomination from Obama, I wouldn’t put it past them. And therein lies the problem. The Clintons wore out our trust, as well as our sympathy, long ago. Like a battered spouse who seems finally on the verge of breaking free, the American people have to stand their ground now and not let the bastard back in the door.